1. Field of the Invention
The instant invention generally pertains to safety locking devices and, more particularly, to child-proof safety devices particularly useful on aerosol containers or the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional aerosol type containers find wide commercial use and, in fact, are common household items. Typically, such aerosol containers serve to contain and selectively dispense numerous types of pressurized fluids for personal and household uses. Such conventional aerosol containers are normally comprised of a generally cylindrical canister member, a top section which is approximately crimped or rolled on the canister, and a conventional aerosol type valve assemble centrally disposed and retained by the top section. Suitably and slidably mounted within the valve assembly is a valve stem which has secured thereto a push-button actuator head. The actuator head normally has a nozzle for purposes of emitting a stream of pressurized fluid. Ordinarily, a user of such valve, in order to dispense the pressurized contents thereof, merely depresses the push-button actuator head downwardly towards the canister member to thereby permit the stream of pressurized fluid to emanate through the nozzle. Such aerosol type valves are typically constructed so as to be easily depressed by a user thereof.
Since, as aforementioned, the aerosol containers are widely used for varying purposes there exists a somewhat high probability that young children will come into contact with and perhaps use such containers in a manner not intended. Considering that in certain circumstances the pressurized fluid may be of a generally toxic or otherwise harmful nature, a child may by merely depressing the aerosol push-button actuator head inadvertently dispense a pressurized spray of the toxic or otherwise harmful substance on himself or surrounding persons and/or property to the detriment of such persons or property. As, therefore, can be readily appreciated by virtue of the commonality of such aerosol spray containers, the rather high likelihood of their being accessible to children and the relative ease with which they might be depressed, combine to present a somewhat dangerous situation.
Early attempts to provide tamperproof and child-proof dispensers employed detachable overcaps designed to cover the button actuators. Such approaches were generally simple and children with little effort were able to operate the dispensers. Moreover, these types of overcaps suffered another disadvantage in that they might have inadvertently been left off.
Other approaches, such as described generally in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,686,652 and 3,158,292 suffer from shortcomings, among which are that they do not provide safety devices which automatically relock and, in addition, such devices are in certain circumstances, able to be completely removed from the aerosol container with the consequent result that they may become lost.
More recent prior art approaches for providing safety devices which serve to prevent a young child from inadvertently dispensing the pressurized substance from the aerosol containers utilize mechanisms which require a sequence of operations to be performed before the contents can be dispensed. Normally, these sequences are beyond the capability of young children, However, such mechanisms usually must be independently relocked by repositioning the locking mechanism. Thus, the locking feature might be thwarted by failing to relock the safety mechanism. It is obvious, therefore, that such locking mechanisms under such circumstances would fail to perform its intended function. Consequently, such approaches have not proved entirely satisfactory. Another known approach is generally described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,786,968. The device disclosed therein, however, is a safety device for an aerosol dispenser which is rather complicated in structure, expensive in production, and not very versatile or adaptable for use in conjunction with the wide variety of aerosol containers and valves presently available on the market. In addition, such known approach is not easily encompassed by the normal aerosol protective caps ordinarily associated with conventional aerosol spray containers, and are not as reliable as would be desired.